Have you seen the movie? It's got a whole bunch of people in it - Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Bradley Cooper (sigh!), Ben Affleck, Justin Long. And it's every woman's story!All of us women have gone through most of the situations that are shown in the movie. The girl who's been in a relationship with a guy for a long long time but he doesn't want to marry her because, apparently, he doesn't believe in marriage. And the girl doesn't keep harping on it because she doesn't want to be clingy and needy and force him to do something he isn't ready for yet. And she keeps waiting for him to come around, until one day she realizes he's never going to marry her. She breaks up with him and the next she hears of him is that he's getting married to some hot 22 year old, or in the case of Indian men to some "homely girl with Indian values" of his parents' choice!
Or the girl who relentlessly pursues men who aren't really into her or don't deserve her while all along confiding in a guy friend who listens to her and talks her through her heartbreaks and rejections. Till she realizes that he's the guy she's most comfortable with and is meant to be with.
Or the girl who gets dumped by her boyfriend for completely ludicrous reasons such as "it's not you, it's me" (heard that so many times, ugh!). Or "I don't deserve you" (excuse me while I go find myself a barf bag). Or worst of all "I'm so jealous of whoever you end up with" (hello, it could've been you!)
Or the girl who falls in love with a man who's married or about to get married to his long-time girlfriend who he loves very much but need not necessarily be 'in love' with. He wants to be with the other woman but he isn't willing to walk out on his wife/girlfriend either, and it's the women get screwed in the process. Of course, in the movie it's the guy who ends up getting screwed - because movies have a sense of justice. Real life doesn't.
I recently came across a quote that went "Behind every gorgeous woman is a man who's bored of her". Now, that's quite a scary thought! It goes against every grain of optimism in my body, yet the cynic in me yells that it's so very true. And guess what....the cynic wins! For how else do you explain what we see all around us....men with the most gorgeous wives/girlfriends who will not fail to cheat if an opportunity presents itself.
And then there are people in this world who've never had their hearts broken. They just cannot comprehend what someone who's recently had their heart broken is going through b/c they've never had to face a feeling of having been hurt and let down. Do I envy them? Of course I to! They live in a state of bliss. They've never had to deal with a feeling of rejection, hurt and disappointment. All that bull about break ups teaching you a lot about life and yourself was designed by authors of self-help books whose books would otherwise not sell a single copy.
Okay, maybe there's some truth to that claim. Break ups do shape the person you become to a certain extent. But I'd rather have a happy life, thank you very much.
So the question really is 'what is true love'? Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France has a very different point of view on love and faithfulness in relationships. In an interview I read recently in The Times of India, he says that according to him being faithful to a woman means not abandoning her, it doesn't mean not straying. So long as a man stays with his woman, he should be considered faithful and his dalliances with other women should be ignored.
It's a very complicated theory but unfortunately that's the way relationships are evolving these days. Men have a completely different view on love and relationships than women, and the two couldn't be more divergent. And the way I see it, this entire thing about men's unwillingness to commit and likelihood of straying will only increase over time. The question is, are women ready to deal with this changing face of love and relationships? Because we WILL need to deal with it at some point. And the answer, sadly, is a resounding 'no'. We're not ready yet.
Will we ever be? I don't know.
6 comments:
Not as one sided as you'd imagine
@Anon - Funny I kind of new what your comment was going to be :)
Well here's the thing...you're right, it's not only men who're commitment phobic & prone to straying. Women are too. But these things are much more prevalent among men. Women don't find it that difficult to commit to the person they're in love with, and they tend to cheat only if they're really bored or feel trapped in a marriage. Whereas men tend to cheat even when they are happily married, simply b/c they get bored of the person they're with pretty easily.
Not abandoning her? DUH!! Go screw yourself for all I care. I mean it is hard and all, but why would we ever want a cheating man to NOT abandon us in the first place? Go right ahead, we can do very well for ourselves thank you very much!
And I sort of agree with Anon here - I have met cheaters, bimbos, AND gold diggers, often rolled into one, often women. Maybe it is about the men I used to hang around with. But I have come across more philandering women than I would like to. Women married to interesting, successful, and fairly good looking, sensitive men. Most men I have known have been pretty loyal. Works both ways. A relationship is NOT worth a person who doesn't respect something as vital and inherent to a relationship as loyalty. That's my take!
@Tamanna - I totally accept your PoV but I'll reiterate what I said in my response to Anon's comment - surely infidelity is a two way street, but men are more likely to be "unfaithful" (as we describe it) in relationships than women. They have a tendency to do it even when they are completely happy in a relationship; they may not go actively looking for opportunities but if an opportunity does present itself very few men can resist the temptation.
Women on the other hand tend to cheat when they're unhappy/feel trapped in a bad marriage. Make sense?
I still think that this is a loaded assumption S. Honestly I hardly know of any people who have 'strayed'. People usually don't proclaim infidelity. But you can be in a relation and not in it
I could write a book about the drama I've been put through. Yep, thanks to an Indian man. I've had plenty of options. And yet, I've chosen to keep waiting. I've only done things out of an attempt to A: get over the hurt and B: because I just wanted a little bit of attention or C: I tried to leave him, but there's noone in the world that I click with as I do with him, who is actually more like me than anyone I've found. Now, only time will tell if he does the right thing and corrects the wrong. Long story, just wanted to add a little input to your comment about why women stray. Men hurt you, leaving you a little scorned, therefore getting even seems like a good idea. So, I totally agree with you Scarlett.
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